SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - Impressive dead stick landing in F-16, No engine, 9000' in 3.5 minutes

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Impressive dead stick landing in F-16, No engine, 9000' in 3.5 minutes

Got this from another forum....really impressive.

http://www.patricksaviation.com/videos/SUPERGT/3384/

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Here's the F-16 dead stick into Elizabeth City, NC: A fairly short RWY for jets, (about 6000 ft long), but qualifies for an "Emergency landing field" in the grand scheme of US aviation.

You'll probably have to watch the video several times to appreciate how intense the situation and how busy the pilot was all the way to stopping on the runway. Very apparently, the pilot was one-of-four F-16s in a flight returning to their base, (most probably from the Navy Dare bombing range south of Manteo), and the F-16 in question had already reported a "Ruff-Running Engine" to his flight leader before the start of the video.

A few comments not readily apparent are:
- The whole episode, from start-to-finish only takes about 3 1/2 minutes!
- The video begins as the flight is being followed on radar. The flight leader askes for the Elizabeth City tower UHF freq which is repeated as 355.6 and the entire flight switches to that freq: Just one-more-task for the pilot to execute in the cockpit as he reports that his engine has QUIT. He has to activate the Emergency Unit to maintain electric and hydraulic power. This unit is powered by Hydrazine: (the caustic fuel that Germany created in WW II to power their V-2 Rockets and their ME-163 rocket fighters among others.) Thus, the last call about requesting fire support after the jet is safe on deck, and pilot breathing easy.
- Meanwhile, back in the cockpit, the pilot is busily attempting to "Re-light" his engine: (Unsuccessfully, of course) while tending to everything else.

- The video is taken using the Head-Up-Display (HUD) camera which also has a voice recorder.

- The HUD is a very busy instrument, but among things to notice are the 'circle' in the middle which represents the nose of the aircraft and where it is 'pointed': "The velocity Vector".
- The flight leader reports they are 7-miles out from the airport and at 9000 ft altitude. Since the weather is clear and the airport is in sight, this allows for adequate "Gliding distance" to reach a runway with the engine OFF. Rest assured, jet fighters glide sorta like a rock. They don't enjoy the higher lift design of an airliner like that which allowed Sullenburger to land in the NY river.

- Coming down 9000 ft in only 7-miles requires a helluva rate of descent, so the pilot's nose remains well below the "Horizon" until just prior to touching down on the runway. The HUD horizon is a solid, lateral bar, and below the horizon, the horizontal lines appear as dashes. You'll see a "10" on the second dashed line below the horizon which = 10-degrees nose low.
- Radio chatter includes the flight leader calling the tower and the tower stating runway 10 with wind 070@5MPH + altimeter setting of 30.13: yet another step for the pilot to consider.
- The flight leader calls for the pilot to jettison his external fuel tanks and askes anothe pilot in the flight to "Mark" where they dropped.. The tower later tells the pilot to land on any rwy he chooses.
- Pilot reports "Three in the green" indicating all three gear indicate down and locked which the flight leader acknowledges.
- You will hear the computer voice of "Bitchin'-Betty" calling out "Warnings". More confusing chatter when none is welcome or even necessary. (That's "Hi-Tech" for ya.)
- The pilot has only ONE CHANCE to get this right and must also slow to an acceptable landing speed in order to stop on the short runway. You'll see Black rubber on the rwy where "The rubber meets the road" in the touchdown area. Note that during rollout, he gets all the way to the far end which you can see by all the black skid marks where planes have landed heading in the opposite direction.

OK: That's more than ya probably wanted to know, but you have to appreciate the fine job this guy did in calmly managing this emergency situation. He is a "USAF Reserve" pilot and those guys generally have plenty of experience. That really pays off.

Not sure if it's necessarily "impressive" in big ways - the technology that runs these things and the skills the pilots have certainly are, but otherwise the pilot and his wingmen just did a great job doing exactly what they were trained to do in circumstances like that. I think the biggest reward here is that everyone involved gets to go home to their families unharmed. Good job boys :salute:

Good landing. At least he had a good bit of height to play with on the way down. Allowed him to get into a good approach. F-16s are not the most glidable of aircraft, in fact, not many modern aircraft are IIRC, althoughone would have thought with its large wing surface the F-22 wouldn't be too shabby.
As CCIP says the onboard computers do a lot too, particularly with flight controls, if all of the onboard computers had died with the engine...well...that probably would have been the end of the F-16, thankfully there's two backups IIRC. Does make you appreiciate the Warthog a fair bit, or the early Hogs at least with their manual backup systems. Computer gone? No problem, just bring her in old school. Then again, F-16s weren't exactly designed to be as durable as the Hog. :03:

A nice video, When the cr@p hits the fan, it gives an extra good coating! when your in those situations, the workload increases massively.

I saw this video at the same site

http://www.patricksaviation.com/videos/perabrown/3547/

The Caribou left service last year with the RAAF (same as the F-111) and are greatly missed.

Nice video! Thanks, Jim.

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Originally Posted by Oberon (Post 1597074)

Does make you appreiciate the Warthog a fair bit, or the early Hogs at least with their manual backup systems. Computer gone? No problem, just bring her in old school. Then again, F-16s weren't exactly designed to be as durable as the Hog. :03:

The F-16 doesn't even have a mechanical linkage to backup with. Back when they were new we had a rash of "incidents" here in Utah, with a squadron based out of Hill AFB. They said it wasn't the computers, but sometimes one of them would just fall down, for no apparent reason.

I'm glad they have the backup systems.

Well, the F-16 can't fly without the computers. Its "flying tail" that makes it so aerodynamically-efficient also happens to be aerodynamically-unstable and requires constant split-second adjustments to keep the plane flying straight. According to some (possibly exaggarated) reading I'd done on the F-16, the plane would flip out of control and get torn apart even from 'normal' flight were that system to fail. Nor are there any physical connections between the stick and the control surfaces.

For all it's worth though, the system works surprisingly well and is part of what makes it so snappy when it comes to maneuvering.

Glad the plane landed safely. Too bad the radio protocol crashed and burned. Damned pilots:stare:

Even so, the comms were well worth listening to. For some bizarre reason, I just love radio chatter.

Just some notes but the pilot wouldn't had to have switched the EPU on (unless for some reason the pilot did not put the switch to normal mode during ramp start). Also the hydrazine is fairly safe (well other than being very flammable and highly toxic), the warning was more that the pilot probably has forgot to turn the EPU off (which can be dangerous to ground crew, as the EPU is designed to be used while in the air, not sitting on the tarmac).

Plus the workload is not quite so bad as some seem to think. The radio and engine controls are all by the throttle, and the pilot had his flight doing most of the radio calls for him. Bitching betty calls you just ignore. There is also an emergency stores jettison button which dumps everything other than wingtip ordinance.

Also the pilot didn't go very nose low, only went below 10 degrees when turning towards the runway, most of the time his nose was closer to the 5 degree mark (the nose of the aircraft is the cross at the top of the hud). His desent was steeper than normal, but that was so he could keep his speed up and not stall. All in all that was a picture perfect flameout landing.

oh ya..

Quote:

- The HUD is a very busy instrument, but among things to notice are the 'circle' in the middle which represents the nose of the aircraft and where it is 'pointed': "The velocity Vector".

That is neither the nose of the aircraft nor the "velocity vector", the cross at the top of the HUD is where the nose is (aka the gun cross). The circle in the center is the aiming reticule for air to air missiles. The little circle with the 3 lines is the flight path marker (where the aircraft is going), the left band is airspeed, right is altitude, top is compass.

I think without the benefit of hindsight....if I'd been the pilot I'd have simply ejected :DL